While the market expected a decrease in planted acres across the United States due to a wet planting season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture surprised the market, slashing soybean acres by 2.7 million acres. Regardless, farmers are still pegged to produce a record U.S. Soy crop, weather permitting.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its June 30 Grain Stocks and Planted Acreage reports that put U.S. Soy acres at 88.3 million acres and showing record export demand for U.S. Soy during March through May.

“As global supplies of soy are tight, the world is watching U.S. Soy production,” said Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC). “Now is the time to look carefully and critically at the global environment, what your customers expect and what you expect.

“Russia’s war on Ukraine, the aftermath of COVID, spiking inflation, and supply chain disruptions all remind us of our shared responsibility to work together. U.S. Soy farmers are maximizing production of nutritious, sustainable U.S. Soy so that our customers and their customers’ families around the world can reliably and readily access nutritious, safe, and affordable food every day.”

Mac Marshall, who joined Sutter on screen for the U.S. Soy Stocks and Planted Acreage Report webinar, noted that traders were looking for a reduction from the March plantings report, but not of this magnitude.

While many states saw increases in planted soybean acres, North Dakota saw the biggest change with the March figure revised down by 1.1 million acres, bringing it to 5.9 million acres. Wet conditions in North Dakota have made it very difficult to get acres planted, said Marty Ruikka, president of The ProExporter Network.

Even though USDA slashed soybean acres from 91 million acres in its March report to 88.3 million acres, it’s still the highest soybean area planted since 2018, said Marshall, who serves as vicepresident of Market Intelligence for USSEC and the United Soybean Board.

“If we assume a trend yield of 51.5 bushels per acre, the reduction in planted area implies a drop in production of about 130 million bushels,” he said. “However, the crop size would still be a record at 4.5 billion bushels.”